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I have spent the last 5-6 years studying and writing books on two critical adult educators, also motivational "coaches" and leaders of various endeavors with ethical and emancipatory importance. I'm aware of my energetic (voluntary) devotion as I look at these two books together. It is pretty clear that I am passionate about assessing the people who catch my eye as 'outstanding' human beings, and their ways of educating and promoting agendas that would be labeled by most people as "progressive." 

That said, there is no easy label or box to put either of these two living Americans (first Four Arrows, aka Wahinkpe Topa, aka Dr. Don Trent Jacobs; and second, Marianne Williamson) --although, they are both 'radicals' of some sort, even pariahs who stir things up and make many people uncomfortable with their teachings and critiques of society. My aim in these books was not always clear but I wanted to document their contribution, in part, as important historical figures of their time--and, who I believe will have still an ongoing impact of significance in the future. Most decidedly, I took them on as "subjects" of study, in what are books above that I would best categorize as intellectual biographies, because they have articulated a focus on the Fear Problem (as I call it). 

I'm just beginning now, after finishing a few months ago the Williamson book, the comparison and contrast of them and their transformative teaching approaches. Surely, they are both holistic, both spiritual, and so on... yet, I have critiques also all the way through each of these books. Not surprising, I am critical of their partial, and under-theorized, notions of the Fear Problem and its solutions. They certainly have "advanced" tracks they've laid down to work with fear but that falls short of my expectations and my own holistic-integral framing and fearanalysis. Yet, that's all part of the dialogue I wish to have with them and their followers, and their critics--that's what learning is all about. Unfortunately, at this time, Williamson has refused to engage me in conversation about this work. Four Arrows has been gracious and we are continuing to dialogue. 

I suspect in the near future I will do more writing on comparison and contrasts of their work and their personalities that influence their leadership in education generally--but also beyond that, as they are also prophetic voices in our day that have much wisdom to guide societies everywhere towards more sanity, health and sustainability (i.e., maturity of consciousness). They both are well aware the current civilizational trajectory is collapsing and extinction on mass scales is well underway. The future is precarious, to say the least. I encourage all to have a listen to their work. They are both readily available on the Internet sources as well in my books and articles. 

Re: my recent FearTalk #12 with Four Arrows, go to:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmyYqdyCtsU

Also, I just found this video image and link of Four Arrows back in his younger days and his work with horses (whispering):

go to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxzAm08731c 

Fearlessness is complex enough. Add "fearlessnessnizing" and you get an even more intricate complication. I believe this is absolutely necessary to work our way in and through the nightmarish days we live, and the worse to come as a global reality of crises and tragedies of immense proportions will rain down. We are already there... what we do about it all is another thing and fearlessness and fearlessnessizing everything is really important, so I say and... so says the fearlessness theorizing that has come to me in the decades and most recently in the last two years or less. I introduce you to the currrent writing I have done on fearlessnessizing as a resource.

"Fearlessnessizing" - was budding, preconsciously and intuitively as I wrote the book on Four Arrows' life and work [1], and especially by the end of that book I began writing on it indirectly as Four Arrows and I were invited into another project of co-writing a chapter [2] for the SAGE International Handbook of Critical Pedagogy. I had been spending a lot of time thinking and reading about "Indigenizing" (especially via Four Arrows' perspective on this revitalizing healing transformative concept) but did not include "Fearlessnessizing" in the book on him but did bring it in somewhat alongside Indigenizing to align both with Four Arrows' thought and the burgeoning field (perspective) of Indigenous revitalization across the globe.

What would it mean to (re-)Indigenize modern societies? And, for me, that came to be: What would it mean to (re-)Fearlessnessize modern societies? It was an analogy I found very useful but have not at all developed in detail yet. 

"Fearlessnessizing" however, has continued to stay a live with me since 2017 early intuitions and then with the writing of articles with Four Arrows in 2018 forward. In the recent issue (Vol. 1(2)) of the International Journal of Fear Studies, I gave it a simple definition and officially recorded it as part of a "New Fear Vocabulary" [Fisher et al., 2019, p. 13] : 

fearlessnessizing - [coined by RMF] the process of deconstructing fear-based realities and structures and replacing them with fearlessness-based ones; analogous to indigenizing [3]

See also some writing on this concept in a recent technical paper on "fearlessness psychology" I am developing (Fisher, 2019) [4]

So, that definition, preliminary as it is, has a long history that goes back to the prophetic visionary experience I had with Catherine in the birthing of the In Search of Fearlessness (ISOF) Project (1989), a project (spiritual, philosophical and political) that was meant to counter the dominating hegemony of the Fear Project [5]. In a sense, that very counter-hegemonic 'turn' I was introducing formally to the planetary conciousness was itself a fearlessnessizing of everything. It's hard to even imagine that. The fear-based paradigm was to become eventually a fearlessness paradigm [6] and so on. I was on this grand project to re-make and re-label the world--so to speak. I know that sounds all rather grandiose. And, so is Indigenizing the world. 

Besides the ISOF Project and the Indigenizing project, there was a prior influence in my educational (re-)evolution tracing back to the Critical Tradition coming out of (mainly) Europe with the Critical Theory [Frankfurt] School and with many parallels the Liberation Theology (South American) resistance movements, of which the latter produce a very powerful line of Critical Pedagogy of which Paulo Freire made popular around the world and still ongoing. The key term I related to in Freire's writings was conscientization as a form of describing liberation process/work and its deconstruction and reconstruction of oppression. So, in that sense, I was attracted to how liberation (conscientization) was a type of fearlessnessizing as well, even though I did not call it that in the late 1970s when I studied that tradition in my education degree. Conscientizing, indigenizing, Fearlessnessizing all made a lot of sense to me. In 2017 I wrote a short piece on the FM ning [7] mentioning my interest to re-vise Freirean conscientization to Jacobsian conscientization (a la Four Arrows)--of which this was elaborated in the Fisher & Four Arrows, in press) article about to appear in the SAGE critical pedagogy handbook mentioned above. 

Notes 

1. Fisher, R. M. (2018). Fearless engagement of Four Arrows: The true story of an Indigenous-based social transformer. NY: Peter Lang.

2. Fisher, R. M., and Four Arrows (Jacobs, D. T.) (in press). Indigenizing conscientization and critical pedagogy: Nature, Spirit and Fearlessness as foundational concepts. In S. Steinberg & B. Down (Eds.), Sage Handbook of Critical Pedagogies (Vol.1) (pp.   ). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

3. Fisher, R. M. et al. (2019). New Fear vocabulary. International Journal of Fear Studies, 1(2), 10-14.

4. Fisher, R. M. (2019). Fearlessness psychology: An introduction. Technical Paper No. 79. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

5. See for e.g., Fisher, R. M. (2018). The Fearlessness Movement: Meta-context exposed! Technical Paper No. 72. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute.

6. See for e.g., Fisher, R. M. (2013). Fearlessness paradigm meets Bracha Ettinger's matrixial theory. Technical Paper No. 46. Carbondale, IL: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute; Fisher, R.M. (2006). Integral fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper No. 20. Vancouver, BC: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute; Fisher, R.M. (1995). An introduction to an epistemology of 'fear'; A fearlessness paradigm. Technical Paper No. 2. Calgary, AB: In Search of Fearlessness Research Institute. 

7. See my (2017) photo https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/photos/jacobsian-conscientization; and, also see my (2015) 'mapping' (photo) of critical pedagogies and locating Jacobsian critical pedagogy and conscientization as an Indigenous addition to the traditions of critical pedagogies https://fearlessnessmovement.ning.com/photos/crit-pedag-fear-fig-1001

Hi All,

I've just completed a lengthy Technical Paper No. 79, "Fearlessness Psychology: An Introduction"... it is long over-due as I have been pursuing to clarify my 'new' psychology project that seems imperative in our troubled times. I have been a critic of Psychology (therapies, etc.) for a long time... and, I think this will help you understand my work better, as no doubt many have found my work still difficult to get their head around--and, many have rejected it. I believe this paper will make it all more clear but who knows. 

Enjoy,

M.

Abstract (to Tech Paper 79):

The author tells of his resistances to and his love of “psychology” since his youthful years until the present. He sets up the most basic (inadequate) starting place for his new psychology or psychology in a ‘new key’ by placing his inquiry and explorations upon the reference of an “Indigenous Perspective” (or worldview). He calls this “fearlessness psychology” of which it immediately by name alone challenges that most all other psychologies available to humankind are fear-based in their conceptualization and in their offerings and thus no wonder the Fear Problem continues to blossom. He lays out the problematics of all he is doing here and claims that his entire exposition in this technical paper is necessary to go through—he believes it will communicate itself with a wider audience because of this—but his critical philosopher-self is constantly critical of just about everything he sets out—and, yet, there’s no room in this introductory paper to deal with all his philosophical critiques of his own work (and others). This he suggests, a conflictual tension throughout the paper, is probably a really good way to proceed creating a new psychology—which, he wishes he didn’t have to call a psychology per se. With that, the author proceeds to engage a fascinating array of ideas that potentially will change the way “Psychology” is conceived in the first place. The future, if it is to be at all healthy, sustainable and sane, ought to take this Fisherian path and the sooner the better. For it is worth, an improved universal ethical referent is needed, says the author and fearlessness psychology is one way to nourish that imperative and transformative option. A better wisdom and compassion, he argues is likely a consequence of this new psychology—which is not really a psychology.